Blue Cheeses Of France -- A Pungent Bite Of History

April 11, 1985

The first person to taste blue cheese must have ranked in daring with the first to taste an oyster -- surely the two grandest surprises in gastronomic history.

The story goes that a shepherd in the rocky region of the Causses in Aveyron, France, left some bread and fresh cheese in a cool cave, planning to come back for his lunch. In fact, several weeks passed before he returned. Unable to resist his curiosity about the strange-looking cheese he found, he took a nibble -- and man's palate first encountered the glory of Roquefort cheese.

The story is probably apocryphal, like most good stories, although it probably happened something like that. Roquefort cheese is at the very least nearly 2,000 years old, for Pliny wrote of it as ''the cheese that bears away the prize of Rome, where they are always ready to appreciate good things from every land.''

Roquefort and its near-relatives, the magnificent blue-veined cheeses of France, are the bluebloods of the cheese family. It is the blue veining called persille' -- suggesting the resemblance of the etched flowery blue mold to tiny parsley sprigs -- that provides the distinctive richness, pungency and pleasant tingle. For indeed Roquefort and other fine blue-veined cheeses (''bleu'' is the spelling on French labels) tingle on the tongue like Champagne bubbles.

Two elements set Roquefort apart from other blue-veined cheeses and provide it with its phenomental flavor -- ewe's milk and unique limestone caves where the cheese ripens. The Causses is a rocky wasteland, too barren for grazing any animal other than the survival-minded sheep. Most blue cheeses are made of cow's milk (occasionally mixed with goat's or sheep's milk), but Roquefort is made exclusively from the rich milk of sheep.

The curd is inoculated with Penicillium roqueforti and ripens in cool, humid, airy limestone caves peculiar to the distinct. Fine quality Roquefort cheese -- specifically, all the ewe's milk cheese in the caverns of Roquefort- sur-Soulzon in the province of Rouergue -- bears the label of a red sheep. Since 1411, when Charles VI signed a charter restricting the name Roquefort to this particular cheese, no other cheese could legally be called Roquefort.

The French take their cheeses as seriously as their great wines -- special cheeses are considered national treasures and their quality is protected by strict laws. An Appellation d'Origine Controlee (A.O.C.), or controlled place of origin, means the cheese's production methods and place of manufacture are legally maintained. Twenty-seven cheeses in France have that distinction; Roquefort is one -- and the only one to receive its A.O.C. by national Act of Parliament in 1925.

Roquefort is not only ''The King of Cheeses,'' but has been the cheese of kings since ancient times. According to the annals of an Aveyron monastery, Charlemagne arrived there unexpectedly on a fast day and all the monks could provide for his supper was the local cheese. The king began picking out the mold with his knife, and the monks protested that he was wasting the best part. The king tasted the veiny cheese and found it so excellent that he demanded two wagonloads a year for his palace.

In addition to Roquefort, there are about 50 other superb blue-veined cheeses from France; the following are A.O.C. blues and others popular in the U.S.:

-- Bleu d'Auvergne (A.O.C.) -- Made of cow's milk in the Auvergne mountain region. Same shape and size as Roquefort. Blue veins are well distributed throughout the cheese. Taste is very sharp.

-- Fourme d'Ambert (A.O.C.) -- From the Auvergne district, made since the ninth century. Also of cow's milk, cylindrical in shape, soft and creamy in texture. Strong earthy taste.

-- Bleu de Gex and Bleu des Causses are two hard-to-find A.O.C. blue- veined cheeses. The first, from the mountainous Franche-Comte', is a savory cheese shaped like a thick disc; the second, from Aquitaine, has a more distinctive aroma and softer texture. Both are cow's milk cheeses.

-- Bleu de Bresse -- Made of cow's milk and produced in the Ain region northeast of Lyon. The softest of the blue cheeses, prized for creaminess and dark blue veins. Comes in cylindrical forms.

-- Pipo Crem' -- Made at Greiges in the Ain district. Higher in cream content than most blues, very pale yellow paste, moist. Veining is light azure blue. Flavor rather mild, similar to the creme cheeses.

These great cheeses with their assertive flavors require gutsy red wines for accompaniment, such as a sturdy, full-bodied wine from the Cotes du Rhone or a fruity Beaujolais.